Masks
by dropout-ninja
Summary: They never said which cousin Rachel had to kill. Both of the chaos beings knew it was a lie. It had yet to stop their odd behavior.


_"And Rachel. My very favorite Animorph. Rachel, Rachel. Do you feel the adrenaline rush of murderous desire? Do you feel the urge to reach out and destroy me? Of course you do. You and I have that in common." ~The Drode, #27 The Exposed_

Animorphs and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

_Warnings: This is a bit dark, is written with the questionable POV of the Drode, and contains less than healthy dynamics._

_Un-Beta'd, so if you notice any glaring grammar/spelling errors, please point them out so I can correct them :)_

* * *

He had told her what would happen.

Of course, the girl hadn't exactly listened. None of them had. His bargain, his master's bargain, had been thought to mean one thing. But the whole group had been wrong. They'd never _listened_.

Oh, Rachel. Rachel, Rachel. If she had just heard what he had told her!

Then perhaps she would have died.

She was a violent spirit after all. The Drode had been amused watching as she had discovered a simple truth about herself and the war-

That she had no place in peacetime.

No matter how it occurred, she would have had to die before the war came to a close.

But the way she did chose to go out! Perhaps she could say out loud that she remembered the bargain. Perhaps she could fall upon those she was pointed at with murderous desire.

She could say all she wanted too. After all, he lied in some way every time he spoke. It was a trait of Crayak's followers.

But he had seen the truth when she had first appeared amongst them. He could see the truth in the way she refused to go after humans or any segment of the galaxy related to the Andalite-Yeerk war.

And the truth was the human hadn't remembered the wording of the deal.

Crayak had never said she had to kill Jake to become his.

Only that she had to kill her cousin.

And Rachel, what did she do? She tried to go out with a bang. End the war and herself. Her cousin Jake had killed her by giving her the order to separate and carry out her own mission.

A mission to kill Jake's brother Tom.

A mission to kill her cousin.

And it was a mission Rachel of the dark heart had succeeded in.

* * *

Crayak's choices were never real _choices_. Of course not! His master played the game of genocide with the Ellimist alone. The game pieces he chose were never to be like the Ellimist was. They were no longer mortals, no; but they would never be among the level of sentience and power as Crayak was.

This said, his master liked choices, liked the illusion of free will, liked the terror of decisions. Once, when Rachel had lived, Crayak had made many offers. He had phrased them in words a mortal could understand and sympathize with. He had appealed to Rachel's desire to 'save the world' (therefore feeding into the human's delusion that her bloodlust, since it was directed at 'evil' and used to 'protect' her 'loved ones', was heroic rather than what it truly was to them- beautiful, glorious, destructive desire). He had appealed to a human's sense of guilt and self importance by declaring that the power he would give her was just a tool! a tool she could use for 'good or for evil'.

It was _all_ such. a. joke. Even the Drode could see that and he was not among the mental capabilities of his master.

There was never a choice in the grand scheme. It was Crayak's power and Crayak's will. It was misunderstood deals he still acted on. It was a life eternal and never living.

The Drode never looked back. Why bother? This state of being was just fine. Great even! So very much fun to be had.

At what cost?

Why should he try to remember or mull on the cost? What was done was done. Last he checked, those that belonged to Crayak couldn't stop belonging to him.

"That sucks-" was what Rachel would say. The Drode hardly desired to agree. This was a dream to him. The power given by Crayak allowed him to be the greatest wildcard of all mortalkind.

Did it matter that Crayak would toss him aside at the promise of a stronger tool? Of course not! Of course not...

Well. He was thankful that it hadn't happened (yet). Rachel hated him as she hated Crayak. There was a mutual urge to destroy the other felt by both of them; one that had been there when she was still a mortal Animorph. So many commonalities then. Even more they shared now.

Now they both existed as Crayak's game pieces, able to do whatever they desired while their master ignored them to look on at his true opponent. Now both lived in the state of limbo between mortal life and the death both should have had.

So much in common, the Drode would think only to himself when he watched her.

Rachel was, so far as he could tell, unaware of how often he was near her. She never called to him or tore his form apart (temporarily) when he would watch her in the quiet.

Maybe she hadn't noticed. Maybe she didn't care.

She liked to pretend she didn't care. About anything. About her newfound power and the leash attached to it. About the slaughters and manipulations that Crayak would make them both do.

About the life she left behind.

Crayak no doubt knew. But he was above them. He knew, but could not comprehend. He could see her hidden thoughts, but could not find them important so long as they stayed hidden.

For now, he conceded to her demand that she not return to the human populated areas of this galaxy. For now, the way she'd played with and destroy her hated enemies was enough to entertain him.

At any moment that could change (Crayak still wanted...revenge wasn't the word for it, but it was the closest desire that the Drode could understand, on Jake for the Howlers), but for now Crayak didn't bother (after all, for now Jake Berenson was already miserable with his victory; the moment he regained his old spirit, 'revenge' would no doubt swoop down in the form of him or Rachel).

So while she would pretend all she liked, the Drode still caught her looking out to the stars, to earth, to the life and loves left behind- never showing an outward reaction, but grieving and bitterly resenting all the same.

Forever tied to Crayak, achieving his and his master's hopes for her, reveling in false control.

So much in common...

* * *

Both knew it was a lie.

It had yet to stop their odd behavior.

Just like Crayak allowed Rachel to become anything she imagined, quite without the limitations of the Escafil device, the Drode could change his form.

This shared ability had let this whole...thing...start. It wasn't based in any affection on their parts, oh no. Rachel still felt the adrenaline rush of murderous desire directed towards him. Towards the Drode.

Sometimes it was easy to pretend though.

Why he played along as well, the creature wasn't sure. Beneath all the hate between them and delightful destruction they sometimes shared and laughed over, he could see the lost grief. The very human parts of her that she had no outlet to let go of.

There would never be that outlet if she got her way. Staring at the humans from afar but never showing herself, never getting close- it only seemed to make her loss pull at her mind more and more.

The Drode wondered what it would be like to miss his people.

So maybe it was curiosity that compelled him. Maybe it was because, though it manifested as vitriol, she had been his favorite and now she belonged to Crayak as he had hoped she would.

Maybe it was because they both belonged to Crayak and as many delightful perks being such contained, the game left the game pieces drained and empty.

There- she was doing it again. Sitting atop a station hovering in the outer reaches of the Milky Way and staring out.

It was always like this when she thought. Staring out, out, out, never letting a tear show or her expression change from neutrality-

Such composure impressed him as much as her chaotic violence.

And so it was time for them to enact the lie. To live a delusion for just a moment before they returned to Crayak's side.

He willed himself to a shape that didn't belong to him and flew to the once-human.

* * *

"Isn't it cool, Tobias?"

What, the stars? The sprawl of clusters and nebulae?

That had grown old for him centuries ago.

"Yeah," he replied, "It's awesome."

Her shoulder bumped his and made his form rock back. Tobias had been trapped young when Rachel had known him. But in her make belief, he could look as if he had aged. As if they both had aged and grown closer as they grew up and-

And nothing that had really happened.

"Way to undersell it," Rachel teased, or tried to while her heart wasn't in on it all.

The Drode had no way of knowing what Tobias would have said so he just laughed alongside her and then went silent with a smile that she returned. Rachel also knew that he could only play along so far; so she expected him to be rather quiet during these sessions.

At least the real Tobias had been a quiet boy too.

When he tried to crack a joke back at her, since from what he could tell the human boy tried humor plenty, Rachel's smile cracked just slightly. A break of the mask, a crack in the act; whatever he had done or said had been too dissonant to what Tobias would have.

"Let's just sit quietly here, how about that?" she said with that same cracked smile. Trying so desperately to protect the illusion.

He went quiet and let her pull him into a cuddle.

Let her hold him too tightly and look over the stars that had long lost their thrill for him.

There were so many reasons he could think of to explain why the _wild card_ played along with this.

He wished he could just find the reason that actually rang truest.

"Tobias."

Rachel knew they were running out of time but she still took his hand unhurriedly. Fingers tightened around his unmoving, unnaturally pink ones. He willed the limp appendages to squeeze back.

"I love you."

Of course she said it every time. Her last words as a mortal had been to tell her love that she cared. No matter what a monster she had become in those three years, no matter what she had morphed into, she cared.

As a tool of Crayak, she acted with enthusiasm and had her fun. But she seemed to carry this growing, festering insecurity over whether Tobias or her family would ever be able to love her back anymore.

It was so obvious that she wanted to see them again. To speak with them all. To speak with Tobias, the other one who had no longer felt more human than animal.

And she knew she never would.

So she said it to their faces and pretended their souls actually lay under the masks instead of his detested one.

"I love you too, Rachel," he repeated the words her illusion no doubt wanted him to.

It had been so, so long since he hadn't lied and twisted each word he said or thought. The Drode could not even remember what it felt like to speak the truth.

But he had a sick dread that it felt something like that.

* * *

_AN- Thank you for reading!_


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